HIS-103

Lecture- 3

Birth of All India Muslim League 1906 and the Consequent Development
 Introduction
• The All-India Muslim League was a political
party established on 30 December 1906 at
Dacca
• Initially, it was led by Aga Khan (III) and
ultimately by Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
• It was instrumental in creating public opinion
in favour of Muslim nationalism and finally in
achieving Pakistan in 1947.
 Background
•The background of the foundation of the Muslim League
may be traced back to the establishment of the Indian
National Congress in 1885.
•The Western educated Hindu elite with the objectives of
sharing power with the British Raj and motivating it to
establish representative government in India established the
Congress.
•Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the most widely respected leader of
the Muslim community, discouraged the Indian Muslims not
to join the Congress in the interest of the Muslim
community.
 Background
• He started his movement by establishing a college
at Aligarh in 1875.
• It became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920.
• He and many other Muslim leaders believed that
the Muslims as a downtrodden nation could get
more benefit from the loyalty to the British rather
than from any opposition to them.
• He called upon his followers to devote their
energy and attention to popularizing English
education among the Muslims.
 Aligarh Movement
• In 1886, he founded the Muhammadan Educational
Conference
• The conference, in addition to generating funds
for Sir Syed’s Aligarh Muslim University, motivated
the Muslim upper class to advocate for British
education, especially science and literature,
among Indian Muslims
• This perception and consequent activism has been
known as the Aligarh Movement
 Formation
• By 1901, the formation of a Muslim political party on the
national level was seen as essential
• The first meeting was held at Lucknow in September 1906 for
taking the decision to form the all-Indian Muslim political party
• The second meeting at Simla in October 1906 decided to frame
the objectives of the party on the occasion of the annual
meeting of the AIME Conference, which was scheduled to be
held in Dhaka
• Meanwhile, Nawab Khwaja Salimullah Khan published a
detailed scheme through which he suggested the party to be
named All-India Muslim Confederacy
 Foundation
• The Annual meeting of the All-India Muhammadan
Educational Conference was held in Dacca from 27
December until 30 December 1906 
• Three thousand delegates attended 
• Its objectives was explained and stressed the unity of
Muslims under the banner of an association
• It was formally proposed by Nawab Khwaja Salimullah
Khan and supported by many others
• It was on 30 December 1906, in the AIME Conference  held
at the Ahsan Manzil palace of the Dhaka Nawab Family, the
foundation of the Muslim League was finally laid.
AIME Conference  at the Ahsan
Manzil 
 Birth of AIML
• The AIML was the first Muslim political party of
India.
• The idea was that the Congress Party was only
catering to the needs of the Hindus.
• Though there were many Muslim leaders as
members in the Congress
• The founders of the Muslim League were: Nawab
Khwaja Salimullah Khan, Vikar-ul-Mulk, Syed
Amir Ali, Syed Nabiullah, Khan Bahadur Ghulam
and Mustafa Chowdhury.
 Birth of AIML
• The first Honorary President of the League was Sir
Sultan Muhammed Shah (Aga Khan III).
• The AIML was essentially a party of educated elite
Muslims, at least in the beginning.
• The objectives of the league were:
– To create among Muslims the feelings of loyalty towards
the British Government.
– To safeguard the political rights of the Muslims and to
convey the same to the government.
– To prevent the rise of prejudice against other communities
of India among the Muslims.
 Reaction
• The Indian nationalist press dismissed the
Muslim League as a rickety structure, destined
to a speedy dissolution.
• It is true that initially the League as a political
organization lacked dynamism 
• It remained in a moribund condition for full
one year after its inception in December 1906
 Consequent Development
• Mohammad Ali Jinnah joined All India Muslim League in 1913
• Though he remained a member of Congress too.
• In 1920, however, he resigned from the Congress when it agreed
to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as
political anarchy
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah became disillusioned with politics after
the failure of his attempt to form a Hindu-Muslim alliance, and
he spent most of the 1920s in Britain
• The leadership of the League was taken over by Sir Muhammad
Allama Iqbal, who in 1930 first put forward the demand for a
separate Muslim state in India
 Consequent Development
• Even though partition of the country was not
on the minds of Indian Muslims in the early
years of the league, it came into the picture
after 1930.
• Leaders of the league started propagating that
Hindus and Muslims are not one nation and
have separate cultures and identities although
they have been cohabitating for centuries.
 Two-Nation Theory
• Thus the “Two-Nation Theory”, gained popularity
among Muslims
• According to this theory, Muslims and Hindus are
two separate nations by definition; Muslims have
their own customs, religion, and tradition, and from
social and moral points of view, Muslims are different
from Hindus; and therefore, Muslims should be able
to have their own separate homeland in which Islam
is the dominant religion, being segregated from
Hindus and other non-muslims
• The two-nation theory became the basis of the
creation of Pakistan.
 Jinnah and Muslim League
• Until 1937, the Muslim League had remained
an organization of elite Indian Muslims.
• The Muslim League leadership then began
mass mobilization and it then became a
popular party with the Muslim masses in the
1940s, especially after the Lahore Resolution 
• Under Jinnah’s leadership, its membership
grew to over two million and became more
religious and even separatist in its outlook
 Jinnah and Muslim League
• Jinnah worked closely with local politicians
• From 1937 onwards, the Muslim League and Jinnah
attracted large crowds.
• In view of the ensuing general elections under the
India Act of 1935, Jinnah reorganized and
restructured the central and provincial branches of the
Muslim League and asked the new committees to get
ready for electoral politics ahead.
 Elections of 1937
• In the elections held in 1937, the Muslim League
had an astounding performance in Bengal.
• Of the total 482 seats reserved for the Muslims in
all nine provinces, the League could secure only
104.
• As high as 36 seats, more than one third of the
total, were bagged from Bengal alone.
• Party-wise, the Muslim League emerged as the
second largest group in the legislature, the first
being the Congress
 Muslim League in Bengal
• In 1937, A K Fazlul Huq, Chief Minister of Bengal,
joined the Muslim League and with that his ministry
became virtually a Muslim League one.
• In 1943, Fazlul Huq tendered his resignation on the
advice of the Governor, John Herbert and the Muslim
League formed the ministry under the leadership of
Khwaja Nazimuddin
• The period from 1943 to 1946 was the period for
making the Muslim League a real national
organization.
 Elections of 1946
• Under the leadership of Huseyn Shaheed
Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim, the League
became so popular that in the elections of
1946 it bagged 110 seats out of 117 reserved
for the Muslims of Bengal.
• It established the fact that the Muslim League
was the sole spokesman of the Bengal Muslim
community.
 Impact on the Future Courses
• Muslim League played a major role in
giving birth to modern conservatism in
Pakistan 
• The Pakistani incarnation was originally led
by the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, and later by Prime Minister Liaquat
Ali Khan
 Aftermath
• After the partition of India in 1947, the All-India
Muslim League was formally disbanded.
• It was succeeded by Indian Union Muslim
League in the new India which continues to have
a presence in the Indian Parliament to this day.
• In Pakistan, the Pakistan Muslim league
eventually split into several political parties,
which became the successors of the All-India
Muslim League
 Muslim League in East Pakistan
• The Muslim League formed its government in East
Pakistan immediately after the partition of Bengal
• After the death of Jinnah, Nurul Amin was nominated as
the Chief Minister of East Pakistan in September 1948 by
Khwaja Nazimuddin, who succeeded Jinnah as Governor
General.
• Problems in East Pakistan for the Muslim League began to
rise following the issue of the Constitution of Pakistan
• Bengali Language Movement proved to be the last event
that led the Muslim League to lose its mandate in East
Pakistan
 Conclusion
• The Muslim League remained as a minor party
in East Pakistan but participated with full rigour
during the Pakistan general elections in 1970.
• It won 10 seats from East Pakistan and 7 seats
from other parts of Pakistan
• After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971,
the Muslim League was revived in 1976 but its
size was reduced, rendering it insignificant in
the political arena